Play Dates
by Guilty-As-Battery-Charged
Summary: When Junior finds himself a new best friend, Bowser unexpectedly finds one as well, in the form of a single mother who wants nothing more than a new life for herself and her young daughter after the disastrous failure of her marriage. But what if being the Koopa King's friend and confidante is far more than she bargained for? Bowser/OC.


**Summary:** When Junior finds himself a new best friend, Bowser unexpectedly finds one as well, in the form of a single mother who wants nothing more than a new life for herself and her young daughter after the disastrous failure of her marriage. But what if being the Koopa King's friend and confidante is far more than she bargained for? Bowser/OC.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Super Mario.

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**Play Dates: ****Chapter One**

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A young Koopa boy with a hand-painted handkerchief around his neck and a little human girl with black hair like a thorny, untrimmed berry bush were playing on the floor of her bedroom. They lay on their stomachs, furiously scribbling on their sketchpads with crayons. He was drawing a Pirhana Plant devouring a little red-hatted man in overalls. She was drawing a volcano, and had worn an orange crayon down to a nub making lava spill all around the page, and the next page.

Every once in awhile the girl's mother peeked inside to check on them. She was a human woman in her mid-thirties, still quite pretty for her age, with smooth, dark skin and a good figure, though she'd stopped wearing makeup shortly after her separation from her husband. She didn't have time for makeup anymore. She was a working woman as well as a single mother, and she had long lost all interest in attracting men. Her daughter Melanie, on the other hand, had wasted no time snagging a prince as her new best buddy, shortly after she and her mother had moved to the Darklands.

Assured that the children were alright, and didn't need anything from her, she went downstairs, to check on the dinner she was preparing for the eight residents of the boarding house she was in charge of, as well as for herself and her daughter. The Koopa boy would not be staying for dinner. His father would be coming around to pick him up soon.

In the kitchen, a decadent Cheep-Cheep curry was bubbling away in a pot. She lifted the lid, breathed in its spicy aroma, taste-tested it, and added even more spice. Her curries were always a big hit in the house. The Darklandians appreciated her cooking the way her soon-to-be ex-husband never had. He'd always been full of complaints about her rather extravagant use of hot ingredients (and everything else she ever did for him). She could even hear him now, as she worked at the stove. _Are you TRYING to burn a hole in my stomach?!_

Well, she wasn't cooking for him anymore, and she never would again. She hummed cheerfully to herself as she slipped on her oven mitts and pulled the flatbread out of the oven. One of the boarders, a Hammer Bro, wandered in.

"Wow!" he gasped. "It smells like heaven in here! Can I help with anything?"

The doorbell rang just then. "That must be BJ's father," the human woman said. "Would you mind watching the curry for me, Phil?"

"No problemo!" The Hammer Bro happily swapped his tool-of-trade for the soup ladle, and the doorbell rang a second time, a bit more insistently. She headed for the foyer.

"Hold on! I'm coming!" After quickly wiping her hands on her apron and tidying her hair, the mother-cook-housekeeper opened the door, greeting the much-revered and much-feared King of the Koopas with a congenial smile.

"Hello, Bowser."

"Hello, Valerie." He returned her smile with his own cheeky, toothy one. "Is Junior ready?"

Since their children had become best friends, they had agreed to be on first-name terms. No formalities, no fuss, as if they were just two normal parents who took turns hosting playdates. As if he weren't the ruler of the Darklands, and she wasn't just the manager and housekeeper of a boarding-house for his minions.

She turned her head and called out behind her. "BJ! Your father's here!"

Bowser sniffed the air, and licked his lips hungrily. "What smells so good?"

"Your minions' supper," she told him.

"Damn, they're eating better than I am!" Bowser Junior came rushing down the stairs then, with Melanie right behind him. Both children were giggling their heads off, over one of those private jokes only little kids share.

"What do you say to Valerie?" Bowser demanded, as soon as he scooped Junior up in his arms.

"Thank you for letting me hang out here," Junior said. "Bye, Melanie! Bye, Melanie's Mom!"

After sending Melanie back upstairs to wash up for dinner, Valerie watched from the doorway as father and son raced each other to the Clown Car. "I wanna drive home!" "Over my dead body, brat!" She chuckled to herself, and smiled, waving to them as they flew off in that funny-looking contraption Bowser called a car. Then, strangely, she felt a little sad and empty inside, like a child who'd let go of her balloon from the circus too soon, and knew she would never get it back. She shook it off, and went inside to finish preparing dinner for the boarders.

The next week, on the same day, Melanie went to Bowser's castle for a play date, and was gone for most of the afternoon. When the time came for her to return home, rather than send Melanie with one of his minions, Bowser brought her back himself. The Koopa King's muscular arms were, for once, free of their spiky armbands as he gently lifted the snoozing girl-child out of the Clown Car and carried her to the house to her waiting mother.

"She's out cold," Bowser warned Valerie in a quiet grumble, as he passed Melanie on, into Valerie's outstretched arms. "Junior wore her down."

"Mmmmmmm, Mommy…" Melanie mumbled sleepily into her mother's neck. Valerie shushed her, and mouthed a _thank you_ to Bowser who, for reasons outside his own understanding, followed both mother and daughter inside the boarding-house.

He watched from the doorway as Valerie tenderly put her daughter to bed. He watched her smooth back Melanie's unruly curls, and kiss her lovingly on the forehead before pulling up the covers to her chin. It gave the Koopa King a strange feeling deep down in his gut. It was a hungry feeling, like eating nothing but soup for weeks and then seeing someone pull a pot roast out of the oven. He fought it off.

"Junior can't make it next week," Bowser informed Valerie, not without a tint of regret, as she walked with him back to the Clown Car. "We're going to be busy with, ahem, state business next week."

"You're going to be busy kidnapping a certain princess next week, you mean," Valerie corrected him, brushing some wayward hairs off her face.

"Jealous?" Bowser teased. Valerie smiled wryly and rolled her eyes. She didn't approve, but she understood that there was little to nothing she could do about it. "Hey, listen, I know Melanie will be disappointed, but I'll tell you what. Next time Junior and I make a trip out to the beach, you and Mel can come with us."

"That would be lovely," Valerie said. "Mel will be thrilled. Thank you."

Bowser kept that promise. One balmy afternoon, while Junior and Melanie splashed each other in the water and chased each other around in their swimsuits, their parents strolled together down the beach. Behind them, they left two snaking trails of footprints in the wet sand, one big with pointy toes, the other human and curvy and very petite.

"So…" Bowser began. "That dumb husband of yours sign the papers yet?"

"No. Of course not," Valerie told him, making no effort to mask the bitterness in her tone. There was no need to do so, anyway. Bowser knew all about her ongoing battle with her quarrelsome and unrelenting ex-spouse.

"What's the guy holding out for, anyway?" he asked her.

"A reconciliation," Valerie said. "He doesn't believe in divorce."

"What do you mean 'he doesn't believe in divorce?'" Bowser demanded. "What, does he think it'll go away if he pretends it's not there?" Suddenly, something caught his eye. "Junior, put that down!"

Junior dropped the giant, squirming crab he'd caught in the water with his bare claws, as well as any thought of keeping it as a pet. "I said something like that," Valerie confessed.

"So what will you do?"

"Keep on pushing for a divorce, I guess. What else can I do?" They were interrupted Melanie's sudden appearance and overly enthusiastic presentation of a neat, pink seashell she'd just found.

"Mom! King Bowser! _Look!"_

"Wow!" Valerie gasped. "Would you look at that! Beautiful! It'll look great with your rock collection!"

"Awww, how come_ she _gets to keep what she found?!" Junior wailed.

"Her thing's not alive." Bowser reached out and carefully plucked out a long piece of seaweed that had embedded itself in Melanie's hair. He flicked it away. "Bugger off, both of you. The grownups are talking. Go play."

Junior and Melanie obediently raced off, back to the water. He turned back to Valerie. "What were we talking about?"

"My marriage dying a slow and painful death."

Bowser chuckled. "Oh, yeah, right. Hey, listen, I can have him offed for ya," he offered jokingly. "I'm king of the Darklands. I can have it covered up. Nobody will ever know."

"Thanks, but no thanks," she said. She sighed to herself as she watched Junior grab Melanie around the waist and swing her around in the tide as she shrieked with laughter. "I'd like all this done with as little trauma to my daughter as possible..."

At lunchtime the two parents and two kids unpacked the picnic basket that the castle cook had generously stuffed with goodies. "I've been told _you_ make a pretty mean drumstick," Bowser remarked to Valerie, before tearing into one with his teeth.

Valerie smirked. "I don't mean to brag, but yes I do."

"Come to the castle and make some sometime," Bowser urged, after swallowing a mouthful. "I'll do a blind taste-test, what you make versus what the kitchen Koopas make. If you win, I'll sack my head cook, and you can come work for me."

Valerie pulled an exaggerated look of pure horror. "And put up with _you_ every day?! I'll stay where I am, thank you very much!" Bowser laughed. Valerie laughed as well, as she peeled her salt-licked bangs off her face. It felt so good to laugh. It felt so good to be away from the house. Everything felt so good, at that moment, even the looming storm cloud of her divorce. She didn't regret leaving New Donk City for an instant...

"I really do wanna try your food," Bowser confessed, wiping his mouth with the back of his claw. "Mind if I drop by for dinner sometime?"

"Sure." Valerie couldn't help but smile as she imagined the looks on the boarders faces when they realized they would be eating dinner with their boss. "It's a date."

Junior and Melanie, without their parents' notice, glanced sideways at each other._ I told you,_ Melanie mouthed.

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**End of Chapter **

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